Promises to turn to international organizations

Ukraine

18:24, 18 December 2008

Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko promises to turn to international organizations who investigate into laundering illegally acquired money if the central bank of Ukraine does not stabilize the hryvnia’s value in the nearest future.

According to an UNIAN correspondent, she claimed this to a press conference in Kyiv on Thursday.

Yulia Tymoshenko stressed that the actions of the central bank may be assessed as “a mere crime”, and called on to open a criminal case against them.

According to the Prime Minister, she got to know that the hryvnia’s value tumbled due to “special speculative operations planned at the currency market of Ukraine and organized with assistance of the central bank and some other banks of Ukraine”.

According to Yulia Tymoshenko, it was very difficult for the government to get the information that is open to public in many other countries.

In particular, she informed that since October 1 of the current year, the central bank has been carrying out an emission – in fact, they have been printing the money. According to the information of the Prime Minister, as of today, the volumes of the emission have reached more than 40 billion hryvnias. “The emitted money must have been absolutely openly and transparently transferred to commercial banks, including state banks, to cover gaps and pay out deposits to people”, Yulia Tymoshenko said.

At the same time, according to her information, the amount of 40 billion hryvnias was distributed in such a way that the key financial streams were concentrated in certain banks “which were a part of a scheme of large-scale speculative operations with the hryvnia’s value”.

“I can list a number of banks, but I’d like to focus on one of them”, she said.

Yulia Tymoshenko disclosed that out of 40 billion 275 million hryvnias, a certain amount should have been directed to the real sector of economics, but almost a fifth of the money was channeled to “the bankrupt bank”. Yulia Tymoshenko specified that it was Nadra bank.

According to her, a fifth of the 40 billion hryvnias was channeled to Nadra bank, which, in its turn, bought the currency at the exchange rate established by the central bank, which was always lower than the market value of the hryvnia.

“There is a number of banks that were involved in the same operations. In fact, the bank that was just bought for 600 million dollars, received from the c.bank the financial resources at 7 billion 100 million hryvnias”, Yulia Tymoshenko said adding that “the bribes made up from 3% to 7% of the total amount of financing allocated by the central bank to a bank”.

Yulia Tymoshenko pointed out that Firtash [Ukrainian tycoon] and the Presidential Secretariat are standing behind the Nadra bank today. For them to earn more money, “at present they need to tumble the hryvnia’s value vs dollar. And today a number of special banks, including Nadra bank, are holding nearly a billion dollars waiting for the moment when the hryvnia will fall to the lowest level that could be achieved in this situation. As soon as hryvnia falls to that level, these banks will throw currency at the market, and the hryvnia’s value will strengthen”.

The Prime Minister emphasized that she has all documents confirming the above-mentioned transactions. She vowed to pass the documents for consideration of parliament as well as other superiority institutions.

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